A Woman Accused Sonakshi Sinha Of 'Selling Her Skin' During A Twitter AMA

Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha gestures during a promotional event of her forthcoming movie "Lootera" or Robber in Kolkata, India, Saturday, June 22, 2013. Lootera, a period romance drama is schedule to hit the theaters on July 5, 2013. (AP Photo/Bikas Das)

ADVERTISEMENT

Actors, especially women, are no strangers to bullying and harassment on social media. This harassment often takes on sexual overtones or is plain sleazy at times. Sonakshi Sinha, who was holding an "Ask Me Anything" session on Twitter had a first-hand taste of the same yesterday.

A man asked her, "When are you showing us ur body? When will you wear a bikini."

A furious Sinha shared the man's question and asked him to go ask such questions to the women in his family and see how they react.

However, this isn't the worst that she faced.

Another Twitter user — believe it or not, a woman — tweeted at her asking her to not talk about propriety and suchlike, since she is an actor and, therefore, a person of dubious morals.

"Bollywood actresses who sell their skin for money need not lecture us about what is shameless!," said one user named Aditi Gupta, who goes by the handle @aditi_ca on Twitter.

A shell-shocked Sinha replied, saying, "US?? So ur sayin ur in his category 😂?? What a dhabba on womankind u urself are for sharing his disgusting line of thought."

However, Gupta, or whoever was operating that handle, replied, saying, "Bollywood actresses will now talk about womankind! All actresses sell their skin for money.Dont see anything positive in it."

Whoever had thought that it is just some men who are responsible for perpetuating misogyny, think again. Gupta's tweets got hundreds of retweets and an equal number of 'likes'.

While some men and women lashed out, and rightly so, at Gupta for her shallow, regressive tweet, a few others couldn't contain their glee at having found a woman spokesperson for their shamefully regressive worldview.

A misogyny fest promptly ensued on Twitter with men and women jumping in to have their share of fun abusing a woman.

Meanwhile, Sinha's friend and actor Varun Dhawan, shocked at Gupta's tweet first accused her of stupidity and then, unfortunately, did something that's typical of troll behaviour. He asked his followers to troll Gupta — 'educate' her is what he exactly asked his followers to do.

While some people pointed out that Dhawan is not doing any better than Gupta herself, some others went to length of saying that Gupta, an 'innocent woman', should be allowed to have her 'own opinion'. What they probably didn't get is there is a world of difference between a valid, respectable opinion and the cheap kind of slander that Gupta had indulged in.